Red Sox 4, Blue Jays 3: Koji blows another one, but Boston wins

Monday

Aug 25, 2014 at 9:15 PM

TORONTO — The Koji klaxon keeps right on blaring.

Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer brianmacp

TORONTO — The Koji klaxon keeps right on blaring.

Three days after he melted down in jaw-dropping fashion against Seattle at Fenway Park, Koji Uehara allowed three inherited runs to score at Rogers Centre on Monday night — the last two on a line-drive double off the bat of Toronto’s Edwin Encarnacion — to blow his second save in as many appearances. The formerly automatic Red Sox closer has allowed seven earned runs and allowed three inherited runners to score in his last four appearances — a span during which he’s gotten 10 outs.

Yoenis Cespedes singled home Brock Holt with the go-ahead run in a game Boston won by a 4-3 score over the Blue Jays in 10 innings. The win snapped an eight-game losing streak.

But for a Boston team far out of contention, the ongoing struggles of Uehara — a pitcher they declined to trade in July presumably because they intended to bring him back next season — will be the lingering memory.

“It’s about my split,” Uehara said through an interpreter. “I’m not controlling it. … All I can say is that I’m not finishing the pitches as I want to.”

“Not as consistent finish to his stuff whether it’s the life to his fastball or the depth to his split, the later action to both pitches,” Boston manager John Farrell said.

Is Uehara fatigued? He’s pitched in 145 games since the start of last season, including the playoffs.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” he said.

The wildly inconsistent Clay Buchholz almost went the distance in one of the best starts of his season. He yielded four hits and walked two while striking out four in 8 1/3 innings, coming within two outs of finishing off what would have been his second shutout of the season.

(No other Red Sox starter has even one shutout this season — not even the starters who were traded away in July.)

Buchholz settled into a rhythm early even without offspeed pitches he was able to throw for strikes — a problem that has plagued him throughout a challenging season. But he harnessed his pitches as the night progressed and looked sharper inning by inning. His best sequence of the night came in the eighth inning; he threw back-to-back changeups that fell out of the bottom of the strike zone while Colby Rasmus swung over them.

“Whenever you can throw three or four pitches for strikes, it makes it a little tougher for a hitter to sit on any one pitch,” Buchholz said.

With one out in the ninth inning, Buchholz surrendered a pair of seeing-eye singles — one that caused Dustin Pedroia and Brock Holt to collide as it skipped past them — and then walked Jose Bautista. That prompted Boston manager John Farrell to call upon Uehara to preserve the lead.

Instead, Uehara allowed a ground ball to second that plated one run and then hung a splitter that Encarnacion clobbered off the left-field fence, scoring two more runs.

“Koji matching up against anybody, it’s a good matchup for us,” Buchholz said. “He’s done it for a long time now, and everybody has as much confidence in him as they do in anyone else on the team.”

The first time the Red Sox threatened against Happ was in the third inning. Christian Vazquez singled and Holt walked, putting two on with no outs for Pedroia — who then ripped a changeup deep to left field. But Melky Cabrera hauled it in and then cut down Vazquez trying to advance to third base, cutting short the rally.

With one out in the fifth inning, Betts blasted a fastball from Happ into the second deck in left field, his first big-league home run since July 2. He has also hit 11 home runs in 99 minor-league games this season.

Three batters later, with Vazquez on first, Pedroia did himself a little better. He jumped on a first-pitch curveball and snuck a two-run home run just over the fence in left field to give the Red Sox a three-run cushion. It would last until the ninth inning.